Recent war vets, families help each other cope

Kevin P. Lucey and his wife, Joyce T. Lucey, are spending Memorial Day in Washington, D.C., with thousands of other families grieving the loss of their loved ones who served in the U.S. military.

These families' soldiers did not only die while serving their country, but some took their own lives after returning home.

Veterans who served in military expeditions to combat terrorism on or after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 face unique challenges and issues including multiple deployments, and high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and suicide, and are often unwilling to seek help when needed or say it is too difficult to find.

The Luceys, Belchertown residents trained as volunteer mentors in the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, hope to help fallen these veterans' families with their training and through their own experience losing their 23-year-old son, Jeffrey M. Lucey, to suicide in 2004. He served as a reservist in the Marines after struggling for years with PTSD after his six-month deployment to Iraq in January 2003.

“Before he went he was a normal, average every day kid,” Mr. Lucey said. “When he got back, one of the things we noticed was a change in his tone. He wrote to his girlfriend that he did immoral things — some things he only thought existed in movies. He said he never wanted to participate in the war again. He came back physically unscathed, looked great and was smiling. None of us knew how badly hurt he was until later.”

Families from around the country who are dealing with similar issues have reached out to the Luceys for help, Mr. Lucey said, including several families in Worcester. One has a son suffering with PTSD and who has suicidal thoughts.

That veteran's mother "said she is afraid when she wakes up her son will be dead,” Mr. Lucey said. “Her son has been suffering for more than four years. It is horrible to hear a mother tell you that sometimes she feels all she can do is wait and watch her child die.”

The night before his son died, Mr. Lucey said, his son told him, “No one cares enough to help.”

“That is a horrible indictment of the system — it should be much better than it is,” he said. “Twenty-two veterans a day are now committing suicide according to a report the VA put out three months ago. That is totally unacceptable to us.”

Disabled U.S. Air Force veteran William H. Moore is president of Project New Hope in Leicester, which provides free weekend holistic retreats for combat veterans and their families throughout New England. He said many combat vets are weary of the VA and see it as an agency that is constantly trying to push medications on them.

“The VA is great at pushing meds on them and not treating the problem,” Mr. Moore said. “There is a very high rate of suicide with these veterans. You didn't see that when I served.”

New Hope is run by all volunteers, he said, and veterans and their families are provided opportunities for counseling and holistic relaxation techniques such as acupuncture, Reiki and massage.

He said with multiple deployments, and high PTSD and traumatic brain injury rates because of improvised explosive devices, more families are breaking up and drug and alcohol abuse is high. Moreover, those serving in the National Guard and Reserve do not have family close by, as they would if they were stationed on an active military base. The children of GWOT veterans are also traumatized when parents are deployed multiple times, he said.

“The whole family makeup is not the same,” he said. “We're trying to keep families together. You cannot just treat the veteran. You have to treat the spouse and children.”

Army reservist Karina Wallace, 29, from Worcester, who served for six years as a supply specialist from 2002 to 2008, said New Hope's retreats are invaluable.

Ms. Wallace was deployed to Iraq for a year in 2003, she said, before there were Burger Kings and Starbucks on bases like there were when her younger sister was deployed several years later. She said when she first landed in Kuwait, right when she got off the plane there was a chemical attack and they had to put their masks on.

“It was tough for me because I was only 18 years old when I got there,” she said. “It was really scary and I missed my mom. When you hear bombs in the background you wonder what is going on.” She said they were often transporting fuel, which made them potential targets.

“You could see burned bodies when we had to drive down the center of downtown Baghdad,” she said. “You don't know if something is gong to happen. We did get shot at one time. Thank God we just unloaded our fuel.”

When she returned, she said, it was hard to adjust, but she feels lucky that she wasn't diagnosed with PTSD like so many other Iraq War vets.

“All wars are different,” she said. “It matters what the individual goes through emotionally and how much they see. People who go on the front lines face more challenges than those who stay behind.”

She is attending classes full time at Worcester State University while taking care of her 16-month-old son, Giovanni A. Wallace, and said she is racing to finish her degree before her educational benefits run out.

“I went to war and want to get a Ph.D, but I have an end date,” she said. “There are no other programs. I didn't come back with a service-connected disability. I didn't get hurt, so there is nothing else.

“The support is kind of hard to find so you have to do your own digging and searching. They don't reach out enough,” she added.

Like Mr. Moore, Rev. Beverly Prestwood-Taylor, executive director of the Brookfield Institute in Brookfield, is picking up where veterans feel the VA is lacking, working with organizations to educate the public about the needs of returning military.

“There are many resources available, but I think the challenge is that their needs are difficult to meet,” she said. “Part of it is that there aren't that many jobs for returning veterans. When you return to civilian life, it really helps you to move on with life, if you have a job.”

PTSD and traumatic brain injury — the signature injury of veterans of the "war on terrorism," make it difficult to function well day-to-day and do the things they need to do to manage their lives, Rev. Prestwood-Taylor said.

“The other part of it is, with this kind of war — where the goal is to try to transform the hearts and minds of the population where you are serving as Gen. Petraeus said when he was general — one day you are handing out lollipops to kids on the street and talking to the community and the next day you're either going after someone or they are targeting you. There is no clear enemy and no clear enemy lines, and it makes it much more difficult to transition back.”

"War on terrorism" vets also experience what the VA now calls “moral injury,” she said, meaning an injury to a veteran's soul, spirit or conscience when their sense of values are violated either by what they did when they were serving, what they observed someone else doing, or a situation they were in that they didn't stop.

Rev. Todd B. Farnsworth, who counsels veterans throughout Worcester County and volunteers with New Hope, said the families recent war veterans also experience fatigue from multiple deployments.

“There is a sense of uncertainty around not knowing when the service person will be called up again,” he said. “They're always in a state of life interrupted and seemed resigned to that is just the way it is these days.”

He said he isn't sure the government is up to speed with the amount of stress the lengthy and multiple deployments bring into families.

“They are still playing catch-up with what all of it means,” he said. “There is a lot of red tape and standardization in the military and people are coming back with non-standard issues and they are very proud and don't want to ask for help or accept it. Sometimes they don't know how to describe help that they need.”

Contact Paula Owen at powen@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter @PaulaOwenTG.

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